Haiti cholera toll rises to 1,721

Port-au-Prince, Nov 30 (IANS/EFE) The number of deaths from the cholera epidemic afflicting Haiti since mid-October has risen to 1,721, health officials said.

In all, 75,888 people have been attended for the disease, of whom 33,485 were hospitalised, though 32,283 of them recovered and were sent home.

Cholera, which was eradicated in the impoverished Caribbean nation until it appeared last month, has killed 760 people in the northern province of Artibonite, the hardest hit by the scourge.

Following that province is Nord, with 290 deaths, Ouest with 285 including 162 in the Haitian capital, Plateau Central with 177, and Nord-Ouest province with 164 fatalities.

Port-au-Prince remains dotted with camps holding some of the hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by a Jan 12 earthquake blamed for more than 200,000 deaths.

Only one of Haiti’s 10 provinces, Nippes, has not had a single cholera death.

The origin of the epidemic remains unknown, although, according to examinations performed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it has been caused by a strain that is found in southern Asia.

Some Haitians accuse Nepalese troops with UN Stabilization Mission for Haiti, or Minustah, of being the origin of the epidemic and have related the outbreak of the disease with the dumping of human waste near a tributary of the Artibonite River.